Ganondagan In Autumn

Did some autumn hiking today at Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY, today. I don't get out often enough in the fall. I love the trails in the late spring and summer, but there's magic to be found in other seasons as well. The trails are part of a Seneca village that existed here back in the 1600s. It was attacked by French-Canadian forces in July 1687 and defeated, part of a conflict known as the Beaver Wars. Today they're building a Visitors Center on the site, and the hiking trails and festival held every year are enjoyed by people from near and far. Hope these pictures can give a sense of the beauty there.

Going Native

I’ve read a lot of books in 49 years. As I’ve crossed many of the obvious ones off my list, I’ve made an effort to search for stories that sound good but may have eluded me in the past. A good number of the books have gone out of print since they were published, and it’s difficult to find clues about their existence anymore. When I do find mention of one of them, I sit up a bit straighter and note the title and author, saving it for when I get the opportunity to look for it.

I first read Native American fiction back in the early 90s, when Sherman Alexie published, to much acclaim, his first short story collection, The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. I remember liking it, but I confess that I haven’t read anything else of his since. I’ve picked up his subsequent books and considered reading them, but either the story didn’t resonate with me, or there was something else I had a more burning interest in at the time.

A couple years ago, I had one of those sit-up-straight moments when a Native writer was mentioned and I hadn’t heard his name before. The novel sounded intriguing, so I went out and got it. Since then, I’ve had this strong desire to devour as much Native fiction as I could find. Apart from the odd LeCarre novel, it’s about all I’ve been reading. I wanted to share who the authors are and what I thought of their works.

James Welch – His was the first book that started my somewhat obsessive focus. Winter In The Blood is the story of a young Indian who lives on a Montana reservation, his struggle with his identity, and the deaths of his father and brother. The young man spends his days in a boozy haze, trying to locate an ex-girlfriend who stole his gun, and encountering a few other sympathetic women along the way. There’s a baleful tone throughout, and the narrator’s heartbreak at what was lost, in terms of his culture and his people, runs just under the surface, guiding his every move. I just learned that a film was made of the book back in 2012. That’s one I’ll want to see.

As good as that novel was, it was another Welch novel that really impressed me. Fools Crow is a more ambitious historical story, set in 1870. It concerns mainly one initially unassuming member of a Blackfeet tribe, named White Man’s Dog. We are given a glimpse into the life of this band as they survive day to day, hunting buffalo, raising families, beginning and ending relationships, mounting a war party on the nearby Crow tribe, and watching as white settlers begin to encroach on their sacred living space. White Man’s Dog proves himself to be a formidable warrior and leader, and earns a respectful change of name in the process. The book was published in 1986, but all the while I felt like it was a historical document, written in such exquisite detail that Welch must have somehow time-traveled to that time and place and recorded the events as they happened. The story is rich with the spiritual life of the tribe as well, as Fools Crow (his new name) receives advice from certain spirit animals, and finds meaning in what most would consider the mundane trivia of nature. Somehow, Welch communicates this aspect without making it seem the least bit silly or unbelievable. By the end, we all know what will happen, but the author chooses an ending that honors the life his ancestors led, the one that whites harshly and cruelly annihilated in their heedless race to the west coast. It’s a novel that I will never forget. Welch died back in 2003.

Leslie Marmon Silko – Silko’s novel Ceremony is set just after World War II, and is about a Native veteran who returns from the war to his hometown in New Mexico. He struggles with his memories of the war, specifically the death of his older brother, with whom he had a special bond. He copes by drinking too much, and keeping company with fellow vets who are constantly seeking and finding trouble. As the path he follows becomes ever darker, he finally looks for redemption in Pueblo spiritual practices. Again, a major theme here is reconnection with the old ways, and how they can help at least begin the healing so desperately needed after the genocide of a few generations before. Silko’s book sheds the light on what may have been the story for many Natives in those years afterward, as the rest of the country tried to forcibly assimilate them into white culture, or just forgot about them entirely.

N. Scott Momaday – Probably best known for his novel House Made Of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. The story is similar to Silko’s book (though it preceded hers) about a returning veteran of World War II and his unsuccessful attempts to deal with the war’s trauma. Again, the drug of choice is alcohol, and the character knocks around his hometown for a while before making a fateful decision and landing in jail in LA. He returns to his home after six years, only surviving with the aid of a couple of friends, and begins the process of reconnection with his people and their ways. It’s a powerful story with indelible images (an albino Indian in a bizarre ceremony, a brutal attack that ends up on a lonely beach), and Momaday’s prose is patient and poetic (no surprise, since he is also a poet). I also recommend another novel by him from 1989, The Ancient Child.

Louise Erdrich – At this point, maybe the best known of Native writers besides Alexie, she has many novels to her credit. I recently read Tracks, which concerns the story of three Anishinaable families in Minnesota and their internal conflicts, as well as pressure from white expansion into their land. The story takes place a century ago, and the conflicts center around a Native woman who is fiercely independent and demonstrates shamanistic abilities, and a mixed race woman who denies her Native legacy and enters a convent. It’s another novel that attempts to fill in somewhat those years after the westward expansion completed, when the Native story is conveniently omitted from history. In tone, Erdrich tends to echo the favored style of the day, and has clearly taken cues from them, which I think explains much of her popularity. She’s a little florid for my taste, but this novel evoked the time and place with a haunting solemnity.

Susan Power – I’m currently reading her first novel, The Grass Dancer, and enjoying it immensely. Her prose style is more spare and matter-of-fact, with apt flourishes in spots. This novel is constructed as a series of vignettes connected by the characters. It jumps around in time, but I’m enjoying getting the background on those who have so far been introduced. There is a heavy spiritual aspect to the work, and one of the main characters is an older woman who regularly manipulates men through her “spells”. As with any book I like, I’m eager to read the rest, but not trying to read it too quickly. Like a good friend, you want it to linger for as long as possible.

Here you have the Native authors and their works that have made an impact on me in the last couple of years. I plan to read more of their books, plus continue looking for new authors to discover. After finding so many of the more well-known authors on the bestseller lists disappointing, it’s been great to find some work that I can truly enjoy, without the self-conscious pretention baked in to so much of the MFA set’s prose. As a bonus, maybe these stories can help start a discussion about acknowledging and coming to terms with the barbaric and bloody past of the founding of this country.

The Scale of Memory

Colonial street level in New Castle

I spent my first 11 years in New Castle, Delaware, a small town just south of Wilmington. It’s a town rich in colonial history. To walk through its streets is literally to travel back to that era. Many of the buildings from that time still stand, and are still lived in by residents. When walking through the town, one is struck by the different sense of scale. When I visited again back in 2002, after an absence of two decades, I walked through the town, armed with an enlivened sense of the colonial era in America. I snapped pictures, which are lying in a box somewhere in the house. One building in particular compelled my interest. There was a sign in front that informed the passerby that it served as a tavern during those times. I stared at the façade. It was red brick, with long windows, a two-storey affair. But again, back to the scale. I noted how much smaller the doorway was compared to modern domiciles. Most peculiar of all, if I had walked right up to the front of house, it appeared that I could’ve reached up and easily touched the bottom of the second storey window. It was almost as if I were confronted with a massive dollhouse. I knew colonial men and women were smaller in stature, due at least in part to a diet much lower in calories and nutrition than ours today. But this building, and many others like it, looked as if it could’ve been built for hobbits. I only wished that I could’ve toured the interior.

That was one form of time travel on my trip then. The other form was more personal--staying with my cousins a few miles away from town. They still lived in the apartment above the garage of my aunt and uncle’s house, where they’d lived when we moved away back in the mid-70s. When I came to visit, they let me stay in the main house, which was then occupied by their oldest daughter. I stayed in the secondary bedroom. It was comfortable enough, but immediately upon arriving, I was haunted by ghosts. All of those who had inhabited the past I’d left behind, my memories of it like ancient insects trapped in amber. So much of the setting looked the same that it was difficult not to call them up in my mind. The stage was there, ridiculously intact, which made their absence that much more keenly felt. I remember standing in the kitchen, looking around, seeing myself and my aunt and uncle in their customary places. All of us around the dinner table, amid the buzz of conversation. The taste of my aunt’s wonderful dinners. The spot in the spare room where I played with Christmas presents. I had an earache that year (what was it, ’74? ’75?). The living room where I watched Phillies games when they were on, Harry Kalas calling the play-by-play. That same room where, when it was time for us to go, I would sneak up on my uncle, who had his face buried in the day’s paper. I would punch the paper, brimming with evil mirth over his unfailing reaction of surprise. Until one day he tired of it, and became visibly irritated. At that point, I figured it was time for me to outgrow that stunt. Looking back, I’m amazed at how patient and indulgent he was for a long time before that day. I don’t think I could’ve equaled it.

They have a decent-sized property, and the back yard held similar nostalgic inducements. I would spend hours there, batting a ball around by myself, pretending I was hitting home runs in the bottom of the ninth. Becoming my heroes at the time, who were Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski, among others. The same yard where I would raptly gaze at the myriad fireflies as they danced in the evening air of summer. As I walked out to the yard on my return, I immediately found a familiar woolly bear caterpillar, crawling along in the grass. There used to be more meadow backed by woods when I was young. When I returned, it was long gone, replaced by housing tracts. The area where my uncle had a garden was now someone else’s yard. The human population bomb had exploded all over the ground of some of my happiest memories.

I had taken a notebook down with me to do some writing. I recorded how I felt at the time. I wrote that my aunt had died just a little over a year before, but it felt like she’d been there the previous day and I’d just missed her. I reported feeling “down and a little overwhelmed”, but hopeful about reconnecting with everyone. It was a good trip in the end, with some sense of coming full circle by the time I left, though it wasn’t without some tension. I came down one evening, after 10, to find the kitchen table and a chair tipped over. The house was silent and I saw no one else, though the bedroom door was shut. My cousin and her boyfriend at the time must’ve had an argument. I righted the table and chair, set everything back in its place. I was a little mad that such an emotional stage for me had been, in a sense, vandalized. It was my cousin’s house now though. The rest of us had only been passing through, like brief gusts of wind, as my cousin was doing now. At some point we would all be gone, as vanished as those colonial tavern-goers, and the mental histories we cherished would be overwritten by others.

1964

Remember those days?
Fridays after work at the lounge
It was the summer after Kennedy died
I knew a Republican at the office
Who bragged he'd pulled the trigger

Coastal sun
Portholes behind the bar
Arguments over Clay and Liston
Sometimes women
Lips with a showroom shine
They listened, expressions like cats
When they took off their sunglasses
Soon they huddled together
Secret musings
Whispers, intake of breath
Covert glance toward the next table

The sea came in on the air
Falling from heaps of heat-loosened shells
Half open
Mouths robbed of conversation
We said little when eating
Staring blankly at white breakers
On a beach across the bay
Littered with colored rectangles
Province of wives, children
Husbands as aloof, crew-cut despots
The newspaper a barrier to the wind
Reading of writing in the sand
Washed by Asian surf

Painted wooden corners
Spider webs billowing in a breeze
Goldwater pushing us to the edge
A young girl disappears in a mushroom cloud
On the TV
Someone observes, "his cause is surely lost"

Prominent behind the counter
Milkshake machine, faded green Sunbeam
A fleshy hand twists the metal cup
Pours a chocolate dream straight up
Sweat beads on the steel
The meal is done, we stir to leave
The ex-ballplayer drops his keys
One of the girls, laughing, takes him  home
The fins of the Buick slice the air
Leaving the place I give back one glance
I can see next week already there

The New Golden Age of TV

Numerous articles have appeared trumpeting a new golden age of TV. I have a digital subscription to the NY Times now, and one of my first stops on the website every day is the Television section, to see if there are any reviews of new shows. If I read about something that sounds interesting, I’ll make a mental note, though it’s getting to the point where quality television is beginning to eat substantively into my free time.

What follows is a list of the shows I’m watching presently, and what I think. I used to look forward to weekends because I could watch movies then, catching up on the ones that I’d missed in the theater. Lately, I’ve just been watching TV shows--watching two or three episodes of different shows every weekend. The quality is such that I get at least as much enjoyment from many of the programs as I would out of a well-written and capably directed film.

Mad Men

I started watching when it appeared in 2007, and it’s still the best show on TV. Created by Matthew Weiner, who was a producer and writer on The Sopranos, it’s depicted the journey of Don Draper in the America of the 60s, as he helps to fashion the vision of a New York advertising agency. Draper is a notorious lothario, and he finds no shortage of women willing to go along for the ride, some of whom are even aware of his marriage as they tumble into bed with him. As we watch his family battered by the storms of his infidelities, we also see the country weather a tumultuous decade, the signature events often coming through on TV news breaks with the agency employees huddled around, watching them unfold. As the series has gotten into the latter part of the decade, my sense of nostalgia has been triggered. I’ll see an object that was an integral part of the backdrop of my childhood, or hear a song that was on my very young soundtrack. Besides the satisfaction of an expertly crafted show, I get this added buzz of reliving that time in a strangely keen sense. The show is entering its last season this year, and I’m already trying to prepare for its conclusion. There was a scene in the finale of season 1, where Don gives a presentation to a couple of Kodak executives for their brand new Carousel slide projector. Don waxes poetic, as usual, on what the product can deliver for the customer, as he flips through photos of his family, the kinds of photos we all have yellowing away in albums or boxes. Images of happier times, as Don experiences personal turmoil in the many hours between when those pictures are taken. It’s an extremely powerful scene, worthy of a first-rate film. He finishes his soliloquy and the lights come on. The Kodak guys turn in their chairs, unable to utter a word, their jaws hanging. Another character tells them, “Good luck at your next meeting.” Good luck finding a show this good again for a while.

Game of Thrones

HBO has been on the cutting edge of decent TV for at least the last ten years now, and this adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s popular fantasy book series continues their formidable run. This is fantasy opera really, full of grand gestures in ominous minor chords. I was initially a bit frustrated because the fantasy elements seemed to be parceled out in meager helpings and sometimes only hinted at in vague allusions, but I’m gradually seeing more of them finally bloom into reality. This is storytelling for the long term, and when events happen, they occur with real weight and consequences. Characters which we grow fond of over time are dispatched with jarring force and callous disregard, which only increases our concern for the rest. The story doesn’t try to hide its debt to ancient English history, and you can see its outlines in the seven Kingdoms and the familiar contours of the map displayed in the sweeping shots of the show’s famous opening (Narrow Sea = English Channel). The show is full of shocking events that go viral shortly after airing (The Red Wedding, the birth of the dragons), and viewers can expect more to come. I love visiting Westeros and the surrounding lands for an hour every week, but I’m not sure I’d live there very long.

Louie

Quite simply the best comedy on television right now. It’s Louie CK’s subversive but still realistic take on the life of a forty-something divorced white male with two kids navigating the tortuous turns it can take in the big city. We see Louie dealing with his ex, his kids, bizarre family members, the always challenging dating scene of middle age, and his job as a comedian. Throughout each episode, he wears the flustered expression of a man who’s continually stymied by life’s riddles and insults. Despite this slow torture, the show has a sweet underlying tone, reminiscent of the early Woody Allen films. Louie often scores the episodes with the same variety of airy jazz, as if to reassure the viewer that, in the end, we all somehow muddle through it. Watching this show after watching a typical network comedy is truly to view a landscape in contrasts. It’s the choice between being railroaded toward the traditional sitcom tropes of petulant insults and sarcastic one-liners, or the comedy inherent in genuine situations that many of us have faced. Though it’s anything but, Louie makes it look easy, and makes it seem fresh.

Boardwalk Empire

Another HBO offering, starring Steve Buscemi as an actual, historical Atlantic City gangster named Enoch Thompson. Thompson (in real life, Enoch Johnson) lived there in the 1920s, as prohibition took hold and bootlegging became a lucrative but dangerous illegal business. He starts out in a position of local power, and we’re privy to the first faltering efforts of the federal government to get a handle on the situation (the FBI wasn’t formed until 1924, so the agency that initiates the efforts to investigate is the Bureau of Prohibition). After a pilot episode beautifully directed by Martin Scorsese (he remains a producer on the show), we’re immersed in the world of ‘20s Atlantic City, with its famous boardwalk and the bizarre attractions located there, such as the storefront that alerts passersby to babies being kept alive on incubators. Nucky’s fortunes rise and fall and rise again, with competition coming from local upstarts, as well as other gangsters based in New York City and Chicago. It is, as you would expect, a hyperviolent and seedy world. We tend to think of the country as being very innocent before the depression, but this program tells a different and fascinating story.

The Americans

I’m a bit late to the party on this one. Just about midway through season 1. The show about Russian spies in the US in the early 80s, and their efforts to gather intelligence while trying to evade the FBI and the threats from their own group of agents. It’s another decent period piece, and the show was created by a person who actually served in the CIA, so it feels very authentic. It seems that sometimes the Russians take risks that are not terribly realistic. They often come very close to blowing their cover and exposing their whole operation. It’s a small concern, however, and for the most part, it’s a voyeuristic glimpse into a world few of us get to see up close.

Vikings

Yeah, there seems to be a common theme among these favorites. I’ve always been a history buff. One of my favorite eras is the dark ages, and with this show, we have a story about the years when Norsemen began venturing out from the rocky coasts of Scandinavia and raiding the British Isles. They were called Vikings, and for a couple of centuries they were the scourge of Europe. This show concerns Ragnar Lothbrok, who apparently

was an actual figure at the time, and his idea to pursue these raids. We see the discovery of a new method to navigate open water, and the particular battle tactics that were used at the time. The lead of the piece is a former model, and has a very limited range. They should’ve cast a more charismatic actor in that role, but the cast is also very big, so the focus is never on him for too long, which is a good thing. One review I read in the Guardian described it as “the most metal show on TV”, which is a good way to put it. I check my brain at the door and appreciate the simplicity of life decided by the slash of the sword and the effectiveness of a shield wall. Skol!

MI-5

This is a show that in England was called “Spooks”, but was titled MI-5 here and in Canada. Probably something

to do with the racial connotations of that word in this country. It’s another espionage thriller, about a group of agents in MI-5, which is the English equivalent of our FBI. Specifically, this is the counter-intelligence unit, fighting threats inside the country from foreign perpetrators, or even home-grown radicals as well. It’s a fast-paced, tautly written program, with a similar air of authenticity to it as The Americans. I first caught a few episodes on A&E when they were running it in the mid-noughties, but when I bought my house, I got rid of most of my cable.  They stopped running it anyway at about that time, and now I can watch all 10 seasons on Hulu. I’ve just ended season 3, and they’ve completely replaced the three principal actors, the former leads having either disappeared or been killed off. I’m waiting to see if their replacements will have the same appeal as the originals. If they keep the same showrunners throughout, then I don’t think there will be any worries.

Spiral (Engrenages)

Essentially a French police procedural, set in Paris. It revolves around an attractive female detective, the cases she encounters, as well as her team and her romantic adventures. She’s interested in a prosecutor she works with, but is not above suddenly sleeping with a young informant on a case after it is resolved successfully. There is government corruption to deal with, and a CSI-like focus on autopsies at times. I’m not a big fan of procedurals, but it helps that it’s set in a different country and system. French movies have caused me to believe that the country is full of beautiful people, and this show does nothing to disavow that perception. It’s been a hit in other countries, but I can see the subtitles handicapping it in impatient America. You’d be missing out on a show that’s psychologically and narratively rich and complex.

Those are the TV shows I currently have on heavy rotation. I’m trying to temper my eagerness to find more of them. All of these are 45 minute or hour long episodes, time spent in front of the screen adds up quickly. I may have room for one or two more though. After such a harsh winter, my need for sunshine shouldn’t be that overwhelming.

2013 At The Movies

This is a list of the 2013 movies I saw, some in the theater and some at home. It was a decent year, though I didn't get out to see as many indies as I normally like. Maybe I can change that in 2014.

Let's get on with the reviews.

Zero Dark Thirty

Director Kathryn Bigelow's journalistic account of the raid on the compound in Pakistan that had been the hideout for Osama Bin Laden. The tension builds slowly but steadily as the intelligence services of the world's remaining superpower struggle to find the 9/11 mastermind. It's a series of dead ends until one female agent, played by Jessica Chastain, catches a break and follows the thread until she manages to find the terrorist's redoubt. Fascinating for its glimpse into the inner workings of America's intelligence infrastructure, and its depiction of the torture methods used to extract information. It gave me a sense of the great experiment in Democracy this country embodies suddenly going off the rails due to the actions of 19 individuals. This made a lot of 2012 lists, deservedly so, but in the Roc we sometimes get the good stuff later than the larger cities, so I'm finally including it for this year.

Side Effects

Notable for being Steven Soderbergh's last directorial effort on a feature film, or so he expressed at the time. So far, he's kept his promise. The story concerns the side effects of a fictional anti-depressant prescribed to a young woman who later murders her husband. I was hoping for more of a discussion about the epidemic of prescription psychotropic drugs washing over the country, but Soderbergh chooses to emphasize the thriller aspect. This was executed well enough that I was willingly sucked down the rabbit hole of a young woman's (Rooney Mara) twisted scheme. I got the sense that, after so much experience, Soderbergh would find it very difficult to make a truly bad film.

Spring Breakers

Harmony Korine's dark fever dream shot against South Florida's dayglo colors of a group of young girls, ineffably bored with their small town existence, who decide to turn criminal to facilitate an escape to the promise of spring break. There, they meet James Franco's white, corn-rowed rapper, a small time entertainer who fancies himself a true gangsta. Franco's performance is by turns hilarious and disturbing, as he begins his association with the girls having the upper hand, only to have it turned against him in the end. It pulls back the curtain to reveal the menace that can lie beneath the carefree party vibe of those sun-soaked beaches.

Iron Man 3

Robert Downey Jr. returns as the eponymous hero for a third go-round. Different director this time as Shane Black takes over, he of Lethal Weapon scriptwriter fame. The dialogue pops more in this installment, but for me, the Iron Man movies are probably one of the least successful franchises for Marvel's characters. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they don't really capture the essence of the hero. I thought he was better handled as part of the Avengers ensemble. It devolves into a finale which again reaches for excess, with Downey being sucked into and spit out of so many different Iron Man suits, to both comic and exhausting effect. Nevertheless, still probably the best of the three films, but I'm kind of hoping they don't make any more for a long while.

Mud

A modest, low-budget effort starring Matthew McConaughey as a drifting ne'er-do-well who involves a couple of kids in his scheme to win back an old love and escape the reach of the law. A well done film with very capable performances all round. It's a film which makes a star of its location, along the banks of the Mississippi, as much as any of its human stars.

Man Of Steel

The much-anticipated cinematic reboot of Superman, courtesy of producer Christopher Nolan (The Batman trilogy, The Prestige) and director Zack Snyder. A trailer released three months before the film opened had me salivating to see this new iteration of the iconic character. When I saw that Nolan shared a story credit on the film, that bolstered my confidence even more. Alas, the film is a mixed bag. The quieter moments are nicely executed, with Clark's powers slowly coming to the fore, and all the questions they raise about responsibility and purpose. Kevin Costner offers a neatly understated turn as Pa Kent. Once he becomes Superman though, and joins battle with General Zod (a one-note shoutfest from the usually brilliant Michael Shannon) the super-destructive battle sequences take over and drown out the rest of the film. More of the budget goes toward demolished buildings than any tactical flourishes in the fighting. There was much made about Supes taking a life in this one, which didn't initially bother me at first. But maybe that speaks more to the creators' lack of imagination with this story. Ah, what might've been had the film lived up to that trailer.

The Bling Ring

Sofia Coppola (the daughter of that other famous film Coppola) directed this little gem about

Hollywood teens who become obsessed with celebrities, and become a part of their world by deciding to rob their mansions while they're away. This movie was based on actual events that took place a few years earlier. Coppola is good at depicting the emotional malaise of the rich and famous (see Somewhere, a nice companion piece) and we get a glimpse into Paris Hilton's actual residence, as she agreed to allow shooting in it for the film. A grown up Emma Watson stars as one of the dimmer bulbs in the gang. This is what happens when all of those materialistic dreams-come-true just aren't enough.

The Wolverine

I never saw the first Wolverine film, and didn't feel I missed much since there were a slew of bad reviews for it. This one had James Mangold directing though, who had previously directed Cop Land, a film I really enjoyed. This was one of the better superhero efforts, as Wolvy travels to Japan to meet with a very old acquaintance, and consequently gets embroiled in a conflict which robs him of his ability to heal quickly. Wolverine is a character better used in a group context, at least for me, but I enjoyed this solo outing very much.

Kick Ass 2

The sequel to the successful 2010 film of the same name, this time with a different director. These are the further adventures of the DIY superheroes called Kick Ass and Hit Girl, in all their stylized, hyper-violent glory. While not quite as inventive as the original, this follow-up had enough energy, new characters, and comic edge to make it an interesting two hour journey. As in the first, Chloe Grace Moretz as Hit Girl gives the film most of its punch.

Elysium

Matt Damon stars in another film about a dystopian future for Earth. This one's helmed by Neil Blomkamp, the South African director who made a splash back in 2009 with District 9. This is more of a conventional action film, with Damon as one of the unlucky many stuck back on a planet devastated by overcrowding and conflict. He wants to somehow get into Elysium, a huge floating space station that the rich have built to escape from the chaotic masses. He receives the help of an exoskeleton surgically affixed to his body which makes him stronger and better able to defend himself against the forces of the elite arrayed against him. Sharlto Copley, the star from District 9, has a hell of a time as the villain of the piece. It's been too long since a film has had a good South African villain.

The Grandmaster

Legendary Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai's tale of the early life and career of Ip Man, the martial arts teacher who mentored Bruce Lee. Gorgeously shot, the film boasts great performances by Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang. The painstaking effort to craft every shot is evident in every frame, and it restored my faith that there are some directors who still know how to shoot a fight scene. A compelling and poetic glimpse into a long-gone era in China.

Rush

Ron Howard breaks away from the franchise films he's been making recently and tells an original story about the rivalry between Formula 1 racers Nikki Lauda and James Hunt during the 70s. Daniel Bruhl as Lauda is real find, an actor that I hope to see more of in the future. The racing scenes are slick and tense, and even though the ending is a matter of history, I still found myself on the edge of my seat, waiting for the climactic moment.

Prisoners

Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal head the cast for a film about the disappearance of two children in a small Pennsylvania town, the confused circumstances surrounding the disappearance, and what happens when parental frustration boils over. This film skirted a little too close to exploiting the situation emotionally early on in order to provoke a reaction, but then refocused on the incident and the slow march toward its resolution. Strong performances from both the leads. It feels like a true story, but it's not. If it were true though, it would probably dominate the news cycle for days. Paul Dano also turns in a solid performance as a mentally handicapped young man who seems to stand at the center of the investigation. He was also an evil plantation overseer in 12 Years A Slave. I like his role choices so far in his brief career.

Gravity

The incredible film that you'll really believe they shot in space. Sandra Bullock is a scientist from a space station that's been destroyed by orbital debris. The next 90 minutes are her fight for survival, with little help, in the most hostile environment there is. It's a stunning technical achievement, and the movies says a lot about our reliance on technology, and questions whether it's made us lose sight of more important things. Bullock's emergence from the shallow lake back on Earth at the end seems to point to a rebirth for humanity, stripped of the gadgets that have divorced us from a close relationship with nature and ourselves. Alfonse Cuaron (Children of Men) directed this masterpiece. Perhaps an American director would have duplicated the special effects, but I doubt they would have included the existential seasoning, which makes the film truly great.

Thor: The Dark World

The second Thor film, as Marvel continues its annual colonization of the cinemaplex. The whole thing gets off to a rather lumbering, slow start, but quickly picks up steam. Thor faces a powerful villain, on top of dealing with the machinations of his wayward brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). The conceit of the action traversing through different dimensions as it happened was an interesting twist, and made for some great setpieces. I think some of the warmer aspects of the character from the comic are missing, but Marvel's “Superman” does need big cosmic stories. Very satisfying, but mostly in a four-color way.

12 Years A Slave

For me, the best film of the year. The true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who's kidnapped by Southern slave traders and sold into slavery in Louisiana. It's based on the memoir he published back in 1853 about his horrible experience. I don't know why it took an English director (Steve McQueen) to make the most honest portrait of an institution that remains the shame of a nation. Maybe we still can't face what happened then, in all of its evil and brutality. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Northup, and the pain that the man endured is indelibly etched on his face throughout the entire film. This is one for the ages.

American Hustle

Director David O. Russell returns with his story of the Abscam operation of the late 70s, when several congressmen were caught in an FBI sting operation involving fake Arab sheiks and large sums of money. This film boasts a great cast, led by the reliably fascinating Christian Bale, as he morphs into an overweight, neurotic con man who still manages to filch your sympathy. Russell's camera is fluid and the dialogue is rich and sinuous. The film ably captures a slippery decade and its equally slippery inhabitants.

The Wolf Of Wall Street

Scorsese is back in vintage form, with a film highly reminiscent of his classic, Goodfellas. Instead of the mob being the focus though, it's Wall Street. Leo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a small time trader who rose to heady heights when he began manipulating his clients through sheer force of a talent for salesmanship. The other star of the film is cocaine, which is snorted regularly and praised generously as an indispensable aid in doing the job. There are some hilarious moments as the inevitable downward spiral begins. Belfort's hubris gets the better of him, and consequently so do the Feds. It's another glimpse into the decadent world of high finance, which seems to be constantly fertile ground for this kind of story. We don't seem to learn anything from them however, as the party just goes on. This one clocks in at three full hours, and could've been edited down by about 20 minutes and lost none of its power. This is a small criticism at best though. At 71, Scorsese still has his gift.

There are some films I didn't get to see in time, such as Inside Llewyn Davis, and All Is Lost, but maybe I'll include those in later posts. I hope your cinematic choices offer as much satisfaction as mine did for me. Whatever you do, for God's sake, don't just limit yourself to the animated crap your kids want to lap up. Expand your horizons to the adult world!

One Last Kindness

I'd only seen David at the nursing home a couple of times in the past two months. A busy late spring and summer, plus an extraordinarily painful wipeout on the tennis court kept me at home more than I liked. The weeds grew high around my yard. The usual outside chores went undone as I recuperated. After a solid month, I finally began to regain the full use of my arm. The bruises faded. My hip is still sore to the touch, the place where my full weight came down on the hard court. But it slowly heals too.

I got an e-mail saying things had taken a turn for the worse. On a Saturday, I made it in to see him. David lay on his bed, under a few sheets, his eyes mostly closed, his breathing labored. It reminded me of my grandmother's last days. She slept while I sat with her, but her breathing sounded like she was running sprints. These are contradictions we don't expect.

I felt like all I could do was to sit with him and do Tonglen practice. This is the Tibetan Buddhist practice of giving and taking—we take the negative from whomever we're practicing for, and give out positive qualities—health, loving-kindness, wisdom, in the form of golden light. We're transforming the negative into the positive through this practice. I'd done it before for David. It was good practice for me as well. Initially, I was too overwhelmed with my own negativity to feel I could transform anyone else's. David taught me a lot of things in the brief time I'd known him.

Twenty minutes after I arrived, the hospice aide came in, then the hospice nurse. He was supposed to be repositioned every 45 minutes. The aide swabbed his mouth to keep it moist. He worked hard for every breath, and his mouth dried out quickly as a result. The hospice nurse looked long into his eyes, trying to read some kind of sign. They talked to him, and his eyes opened a little. The rate of his breath never wavered though. His gaze never focused. I wondered what he was picking up from all the activity around him. Another nurse came in and told him she was giving him Roxillin to help with the fluid in his lungs. She squeezed a few dropperfuls into his half-open mouth. I could barely hear a difference as he rasped.

I talked to the aide as she performed her minstrations. Her hands ran over his arms to check if he felt warm or cool. She would adjust his blankets, if necessary. She told him what she was doing, called him “honey”, and leaned in close as she made sure he was as comfortable as possible. He was “actively dying”, she said. One of those ironic terms, like “military intelligence” or “affordable housing”. She said the process could go on for days. She gave me a short pamphlet explaining this process. I asked if I could take it with me, but she said they had none to spare. I could order one if I liked. I noted the organization name on the back, and the website.

She asked me if I knew David's religious affiliation. I didn't. It was always a struggle for him to talk. I'd ask him questions, and at times he would begin to answer clearly, but then his voice would trail off. The words would get caught in his throat. I spent a lot of time leaning in to catch the words he did produce. It was frustrating at times. Since conversation wasn't really an option, I tried to just appreciate the time I could spend reading to him, or showing him pictures I'd taken on my most recent hike. He seemed to enjoy those. The volunteer coordinator had told me that he liked to read, but couldn't hold the books anymore to do so. We spent many hours poring over his box of National Geographic magazines, looking at the pictures. I'd read the captions and the articles to him.

Golf was on the television. The PGA was in Rochester, at Oak Hill. We talked idly about the event. I tried not to observe the aide too closely, so she wouldn't feel self-conscious. I was curious about the job though. She said she'd been doing the job for 20 years. These people face a time in our lives few of us are willing to even think about. They perform an incredibly compassionate act...helping a dying person leave this life and move on to the next. It takes great courage to face this, I think. Since becoming a Buddhist, there isn't a single day I don't think about it. Keeping it foremost in my mind helps me to be a good person. All the rest of life seems like just so much trivia in comparison.

Eventually I had to go. I said a few last words to David. I hope he heard them. The man in the bed hardly resembled the man in the pictures on his corkboard. They were of he and his wife, posing with different locales as the backdrop. They looked like they were from the 50s or early 60s. She had cats eye glasses on and a shy smile. One of them showed the couple on a couch, David's head thrown back in laughter. Now the skin of his face was drawn tightly against his skull. His eyes were glassy. A slim record of a whole life in those pictures, with all of its range of emotions and experiences. Now David's body showed all of its wear. I never knew his age. The knowledge rested heavily on my mind that we're all headed for this end at some point.

I left after saying goodbye. A couple days later, I got another e-mail letting me know that David had passed away at 5pm that day, about 90 minutes after I had left. All those years had reached a conclusion. I said prayers for him, and wished him a safe journey through the bardo, that he may find his way out of the cycle of rebirth. One of my best memories is sitting out in the hall by the nurses station with him, watching the show pass us by. There was always something or someone to make you laugh. David turned his head slightly toward me and chuckled, as if to say, now I've seen it all. His eyes then glinted with mirth. I'll never forget that look on his face. I would liked to have brought that expression to him more often. I only knew him for his final six months on this planet, but he gave me more than he'll ever know.